


This Is Me

by slavfox



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Dissociation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29352132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slavfox/pseuds/slavfox
Summary: After Season 10 Day 1, Nagomi struggles to find herself again.
Kudos: 3





	This Is Me

This is a follow-up to [ this comic ](https://twitter.com/slavfoxman/status/1316763493916438531). 

CW: very mild body horror (it’s Nagomi.)

* * *

_Blink. The cheek tenses up, so sharply it’s almost painful. A flash of black. A tingling on the eyelids, as the soft flesh stretches to fit the eyeball again after the gentle impact. Good. This is me. Move down._

_Stop on the tongue for a bit. Feel how it presses against the roof of the mouth, how their scratchiness rubs together. Good. Something in the neck twitches, and the jaws clench for a split second. Don’t think about it. Don’t lose focus. This is me. Move down._

_Shoulder. This one takes a bit of effort, and mentally mapping out the muscles and nerves again. There’s so many ways it can move- up, down. A slight tension in the neck. Good. Now rotate it. Up, lift the arm - a muscle hugs the ribcage tighter - down. Good. Forward-_

A shudder. It all falls apart - that awareness of where all the muscles are, how they contract, _who they belong to_. Despite sitting there buried in a blanket, curled up, she’s cold.

“ **NAGOMI-** ”

“No. Go away.”

_Start again, from the top. Take a moment at each stop. This is me. This is mine. This is part of me. Forehead, frozen in wrinkles ever since the game. Tense. Eyebrow. Eye._

Right eye. And a cloud of warm, fuzzy white noise across the left side of her face, almost outside her awareness, like a splatter of paint on the skin. One which will not ever come off, no matter how hard she scrubs. 

Another shiver. Another flash of warmth, this time thin, tickling her right cheek, slowly creeping down. This one, she _can_ wipe away. A deep, uneven breath.

_Lungs: expanding, pressing against the liver and stomach. “My” liver and stomach._

Her arm lifts towards her face. _Like one of Randy’s video games._ Another, larger teardrop. _You press a key, and their arms perform the same, programmed movements on a screen in front of you._ Her hand performs a programmed movement in her peripheral vision and wipes away the tears. The touch feels sudden, uncoordinated; violent, almost. She tenses up.

“ **IT WAS GOING TO K-** ”

Friend- no, _it - it_ pauses, uncertain. Afraid to finish. Afraid to hear the response.

“ **IT WAS GOING TO HURT YOU.** ”

It was. Another shiver, but this time, one that doesn’t just stop. Her memory springs to life.

* * *

“An umpire has gone rogue! Nagomi, _run_!”

Its twisted, monstrous, inhuman face as it screeches hatred across the blaseball field. Its hollow eyes, burning with unearthly fire and staring right at her. Her entire body frozen in fear, refusing to listen to her, to move. Randy. Emmett. Now her. Terror so primal, so deeply etched into being human it replaces all thoughts with one word: Death. Death, a hulking mass of muscle, announcing its arrival with a roar that seems to shake the earth and the gaze of an inferno, slightly blurry in her watering eyes.

“Do you think you can just take away everything we hold dear?!”, the shaking echo of her own voice yells. “Do you think you can just keep hurting-”

A fuzzy blackness suddenly binds her throat, seeping in through the corners of her mouth, between her- no, between _the_ teeth. The sharp, pointed teeth of an apex predator. She struggles against it, trying to regain control of her body. This is not _just_ the terror stopping her from moving; this is _something else_ taking control away from her, as easily as if she never had it in the first place.

“ **HURTING** **_HER_** **?** ”, another voice finishes. A familiar voice. One she knew as cautious and caring before- one now dripping with rage, its tone leaving no room for doubt about its owner’s intentions. Violence. Ravage.

The shadows on the ground grow thicker and lift her off the ground. In her peripheral vision, she can see her arms reach out in front of her, enveloped in shadows. She can see the shadows stretch, contract, and change shape - _her_ shape - as they shoot off as flailing tendrils, flashes of white along their surface; eyes, teeth, where her hands should be. All while she’s struggling against the dark, struggling to hold her shape, to remain herself, Nagomi Nava, all while _she can’t feel anything_ ; a spectator in the back seat of her own body.

* * *

“Go away.”

She moves her hand to pull the blanket tighter around herself. _There, to the edge, good. Now close the fingers. Slowly. Why are they shaking?_ Another shiver; her shoulder twitches and the hand strays off course. _One more time._ The fingers suddenly close, way too hard, fingernails digging into her palm. She pulls the arm against her chest, trying to stop the trembling.

“ **I’M SORRY.** ”, the voice says. Pain. Regret.

“Go away.” A tear runs down her right cheek. Through the noise, she can feel another on her left.

“I just want to be myself.”, she whispers, acutely aware of how the tongue dances between the palate and teeth, how the throat contracts to form the words; her voice small, strained, scratchy, ringing out quietly in the dark, empty room. “I just want to have a _myself_ I could be.”

“ **I’M SORRY.** ”

 _Go away,_ she breathes, burying her face in her arms, between her knees, in shaky, uncertain movements. She’s cold. She doesn’t try to wipe away the warmth running down both of her cheeks this time.

_Start again. From the top. Take a moment at each stop. This is me..._


End file.
